Renewable energy policies in promoting financing and investment among the East Asia Summit countries: Quantitative assessment and policy implications

Many countries have implemented various policies for renewable energy development ranging from setting power purchase agreements and the legislation of renewable energy requirements to providing incentives and imposing carbon taxes. The evaluation of the effectiveness of such policies, however, is fragmented, which raises a need for a comprehensive analysis. This paper aims to assess whether and how policies promoting renewable energy investment have achieved the intended goals. It employs five broadly defined criteria - market, uncertainty, profitability, technology, and financial resources - to build an index to assess respectively if such policies have helped create a market for renewable energy, maximize potential profits, reduce risks relating to the investment, develop and adopt new technologies, and improve the access to financial resources. Each criterion is reflected by three indicators. Values of each indicator are converted into ordinal values for analysis. The index not only scans comprehensively all relevant renewable energy investment policies in the East Asia Summit countries, but also provides systematic and quantitative measures to compare the effectiveness of policies in these countries with respect to the creation of market, the degree of uncertainty, the potential of profitability, the development and adoption of technology and the accessibility of financial resources.     

东南亚八国天然气市场供需与管制现状

八个东南亚天然气资源国按照储量差异可分为三类,第一类是储量相对丰富的国家,包括印尼、马来西ⅢE和东帝汶,2012年底印尼和马来西亚的天然气剩余可采储量分别为2．93×10^12m3和1．32×10^12m3。2012年印尼天然气产量为7lO．7×10。In’,国内消费量358．1×10^8m3;同年马来西亚生产天然气652．4×10^8m3,国内消费量333．3×10^8m3。第二类是天然气储量处于中等水平的泰国、越南、文莱和缅甸,截至2012年底,四国天然气剩余可采储量分别为0．28×10^12m3、0．62×10^12m3、0．29×10^12m3和0．22×10^12m3：2012年四国天然气产量分别为413．9×10^8m3、94．0×10^8m3、125．7×10^8m3和127．3×10^m3。第三类是储量相对较小的菲律宾,2007～2011年其天然气产量与消费量始终维持在1000×10^8ft3上下。文莱、缅甸、东帝汶的天然气主要用于出口,越南、泰国、菲律宾以供应本国市场为主,马来西亚、印尼内需与外需能基本兼顾。缅甸和东帝汶的出口量将随着新项目的落实逐渐扩大：文莱和印尼的出口量将围绕某一水平波动：马来西亚价格管制政策的调整,将决定其出口量的变化以及能否逐步减少天然气的进口量;越南在LNG供应链建设完成后进口量将出现较快增长;菲律宾如果不改革管制政策,天然气的消费增长将停滞。     

Testing Home Ownership as the Cornerstone of Welfare: Lessons from East Asia for the West

In recent years, one driver behind the promotion of home ownership in Western countries has been the belief that owner-occupied housing assets provide a means to build up individual welfare security, potentially offsetting pension shortfalls in retirement. In contrast, many developed East Asian societies have both long focussed on advancing ‘asset’ or ‘property-based welfare’ systems as well as experienced the late-1990s Asian Financial Crisis which forced changes in housing and welfare practices. This paper examines how home ownership and asset-based welfare fared in these contexts and the lessons to be learned. It begins by considering the role of owner-occupied housing assets in different welfare regimes before empirically examining how asset-based welfare systems have been realized. It then considers how East Asian home ownership and asset-based welfare systems have stood-up to economic crises. The final section considers what the East Asian experiences contribute to an understanding of the housing assets–welfare relationship.     

The effect of heating conditions on polyphenol oxidase, proteases and melanosis in pre-cooked Pacific white shrimp during refrigerated storage

Pre-cooked Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) is an important shrimp product. However melanosis, especially in the cephalothorax including carapace and internal organs, is more likely caused by the remaining polyphenol oxidase (PPO) after pre-cooking. Thus, PPO from carapace and proteases from hepatopancreas of Pacific white shrimp were characterised and the remaining activities of both enzymes were monitored in pre-cooked shrimp during storage at 4 °C. Based on activity staining using L-β-(3,4 dihydroxylphenyl) alanine as a substrate, PPO consisted of two isoforms with apparent molecular weight of 210 and 220 kDa. No difference in activity band was observed when analysed under reducing and non-reducing condition. Proteases from hepatopancreas were able to activate PPO to some degree. For the in vitro study, both enzymes were quite stable when heated at temperature up to 70 °C but the loss in activities increased with increasing heating time (0-120 s). When Pacific white shrimp were pre-cooked to obtain different core temperatures (50-90 °C), different PPO and protease activities were retained. Higher core temperatures were associated with lower PPO and protease activities, but higher cooking loss. When the shrimp were pre-cooked at 80 °C, the residual PPO and protease activities were 3.9% and 5.4%, respectively and cooking yield of 95.6% was obtained. The resulting pre-cooked shrimp possessed lower melanosis score during 7 days of storage at 4 °C. Thus, pre-cooking of shrimp to obtain a core temperature of 80 °C, with a holding time of 30 s, could prevent the severe cooking loss and lower melanosis during subsequent storage.     

The Watershed Architecture of the Mekong River Basin

In this project, I suggest an alternative, speculative future in counterpoint to the recent construction and planned development of large-scale, water-based infrastructural transformations in Southeast Asia. Critical of massive hydropower dam constructions that tend to prioritize certain interests over others, I question the future viability of such actions when weighed in the context of possible negative effects that such dams may have across the entire river basin. Additionally, the current forecast of climate change stressors, especially in regards to freshwater availability, positions the future of the basin as uncertain. The focus of this essay is part of my multiyear project titled “Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture,” which studies the Mekong, Mississippi, and Rhine River Basins in relation to water-based infrastructure and design challenges.     

Two Northward Jumps of the Summertime Western Pacific Subtropical High and Their Associations with the Tropical SST Anomalies

Based on the pentad mean ridgeline index of the western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH), the authors identified the two northward jumps of the WPSH from 1979 to 2008 and revealed their associations with the tropical SST anomalies. The authors show that the northward jumps, especially the second jump, exhibited re markable interannual variability. In addition, the authors find that the two northward jumps were mutually independent and were influenced by the SST anomalies in the different regions of the tropical Pacific. The first jump was positively correlated with the SST anomalies in the tropical central Pacific from the preceding winter to June. In contrast, the second jump was positively related to ENSO in the preceding winter, but this correlation tended to weaken with the decay of ENSO and disappeared in July. Instead, a positive correlation was found in the Indian Ocean. We therefore suggest that ENSO plays an indirect role in the second jump through the capacitor effect of the Indian Ocean.     

A Comparative Analysis of Primary and Extreme Characteristics of Dry or Wet Status between Asia and North America

In this study, the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) was used to analyze the average and extreme dry/wet states of Asia and North America from 1953 to 2003. The results indicate that the two continents underwent drying trends during this period. Compared with North America, Asia showed more severe drought trends. However, more significant and regular seasonal variation for drought was found in North America. The driest regions in Asia were located in the northern region of China, Mongolia, and eastern mid-Siberian plateau. Most regions in central North America were relatively wetter than other regions. The northern and southwestern regions of North America, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific coastal areas, experienced the most drought during this period. A sharp increase of the drought area and the number of extreme drought events took place from 1997 to 2003 in both Asia and North America. Severe drought events were more likely to occur during the summer on both continents. Asia had the most extreme drought events during July, but North America reached its highest drought frequency from June to September. In Asia, a persistent increasing trend of extreme drought emerged throughout the studied period. However, a more complex evolution of drought emerged in North America: a decreasing trend appeared before the mid-1960s and an increasing trend appeared after the late 1970s. A relatively steady dry/wet status was observed between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s. The role of exceptional, extreme drought events with respect to the La Nina event was considered during 1997-2003.     

海盐场初级水域太平洋牡蛎养殖技术的探讨

文章介绍了环渤海湾海盐场利用初级水域养殖太平洋牡蛎的经验做法 ,分析了引进养殖新品种 ,提高卤水综合利用率的技术经济可行性